


Gatekeeping

by Triskaideka



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Angst, Gen, Musing, Slice of Life, World of Warcraft Lunar Festival, anyone else all for the finding yourself after a tragedy trope?, brainwashed soldiers?, holiday journal project, it's a set of my favorites, language barriers, post-Cataclysm, sort of stream of consciousness, the "I am no longer a monster but there are pieces of me missing" stuff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 08:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9430070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triskaideka/pseuds/Triskaideka
Summary: The social mores of communities blow my mind, folks. Discovering that there were so few druids in game at one point that they wouldn't attack one another in battlegrounds by unspoken agreement is damn cool.I'll try to post more of these holiday journal entries this year since they've been in my head for a while and I'd like to get them out.





	

_Dated "not long after the Cataclysm"..._

    Another day in Azeroth, where the wild is commonplace.

    It's the Lunar Festival. My contacts among the Cenarion Circle say this is a celebration of renewal. I fall back on my usual refrain: _I don't remember_. Instead, I volunteer for an afternoon of scouting, officially to relieve some who want to partake but mostly to get away from the sounds of revelry and drunken pyrotechnics that always accompany these events. I think they're relieved to see me fly off, a great hero who sequesters herself in her work and avoids small talk. But she does the things that any grunt, any warbrave would find insulting at her level. There's just no fathoming those death knights, they mutter.

    The winds are cold but cold does not bother me. Compared to places I have served this is balmy weather, closer to summer than midwinter. Humid, though. Glaciers suck away humidity like people used to southern climes would not believe. Feeling the wind whip through my mane distracts me from dwelling on things I have no power over. Many things can be endured, ignored, when they are not in front of my face.

    My post is outside and above the Great Gate that makes it harder for the humans out of Theramore to sneak into Mulgore to do mischief. I might remember when it was not necessary, when the road flowed down and through without stopping. But I push away the maybe-memory and begin scanning for any who would attempt to penetrate our defenses. There are so many tricks that I know to look for, from trees of types that are out of place in the sere brown grasses to shimmers and shadows that signal alchemical and magical trickery.

     And there, I spot something moving. A gentle push there and my silent steed reduces altitude so I can better perceive this visitor. Riding a great saber cat and bearing a staff decorated with bits of greenery that stand out as much as the cat's silvery hide, its paws sending up puffs of dust where the ponderous steps land. They halt under a tree where the rider dismounts and pats the cat gratefully. When the cat curls up under the tree, the rider watches it for a moment, then turns to face the gate.

     At this point I ought to fly down and make it clear through either bellowing or gesticulating that this is unfriendly territory to their kind. Instead I watch, contemplative.

    The long ears and lithe movements confirm my suspicion that I'm tracking a night elf once they're back in the weak sunlight. They approach not the doors that swing wide enough to admit five full grown tauren men riding abreast on kodo but the gate's southern edge where the rocks and wood entwine thanks to what I was pityingly told was earth magics. In a move that makes me wonder, however, if it's not a trap for unwary would-be spies, the local leadership has left a space large enough for some sort of small form to pass through. And the elf does not disappoint, transforming in the blink of an eye into a cat not quite the size of the saber cat already dozing off where normally lions would do so.

     I tell myself it's a lark. Moonglow doesn't get most of the guards drunk enough to interfere with a dogpile if more come and I signal for help. And while the druid isn't waving a white flag, this is hardly the behavior of someone spoiling for a fight. I can handle it if it turns into a fight. I nudge my mount lower to inspect them a little better. Old training kicks in, noting how uncharacteristic it is for a druid not to use the stormcrow form for infiltration. A traditionalist, then, using a moonsaber instead of flying. This is some sort of pilgrimage. Well, few enough things are holy to me these days, and many things made profane instead. I will not take action against the druid unless it is necessary.

     They remain in the cat form through the plains on the western edge and into the outskirts of Bloodhoof Village, finally bowing to the elder there. It's excellent timing, I reflect, since there's no one around to slay them. The Earth Mother or perhaps Elune has blessed them this day. Maintaining my cautious distance, I pace the druid back to the gate where they sneak through the rocks with as much ease as before and reunite with the greater cat.

     But for once my curiosity stirs. I land next to the elf, finally discovering a woman with luminous eyes and an angry mouth, her blue hair braided over both shoulders in a way that makes her appear younger than she likely is. She startles at seeing me, shielding her mount with her body while loudly proclaiming something I can't understand. I note the stray thought that had I been a druid before, I might have known some Darnassian, so we can scratch another probable past off the list—unless, of course, like so much else that particular knowledge disappeared during the resurrection process. "Suppressed" because certain truths could break what control the Scourge held over us.

     When I don't unsheathe an axe of ludicrous size and cleave her head in with it, she becomes the tiniest bit less wary, looking me up and down. I make no pretense to be what I am not and I never have but she seems taken aback when she realizes that yes, I am undead. I imagine they keep my counterparts among the Alliance's Ebon Blade members away from the young so as not to confuse them with competing dogma. Still, this druid reaches up fearlessly and rubs my nose. I am too confused to react. She looks sad then bows to me with the same depth she gave the elder and remounts her saber cat before I can think what to do.

      Then they're off and rather than pause at one of the great cracks only recently made in the earth, I watch the druid's muscles bunching as her great cat leaps across a chasm, no hestitation: she knows what her mount is capable of. Admittedly I'm impressed when the living display mastery. They startle a herd of gazelles into flight and speed northward alongside them, going, going, gone.

     I do not follow them.

 

     A few days later, now on similar duty up and down the length of the Southern Barrens while the celebration continues, I happen upon a sight: a broken stave and some scraps of silver fur that tickle at my memory before I place them. The traditionalist tangled with something that she couldn't handle and succumbed. I should feel sad but I don't. Disappointed and a little angry that someone who came in peace could not depart the same way. If I were to find her body, I could raise her as a ghoul but that means of obtaining answers is denied me.

     Of course I could be wrong but I'm fairly sure I'm not. The area has the somewhat chilly feel of a spot where death has walked recently. I bow to the air, thinking that if her spirit is not yet departed she may see the gesture and perhaps think kindly of me in return. Oftentimes, such a small gesture prevents an angry ghost taking up residence where they have died.

     A senseless death, as they all are. I did not raise my hand before when I should have, according to Horde thinking. I did not raise it later in her defense when I feel like I should have.

     In between, I had spoken to one of the druids who sat atop the bluffs watching the main goings-on but not participating himself. A kindred spirit, I thought. He told me about a time in recent history when no druid, tauren or night elf, would attack one another in a clash no matter what the respective leadership might say. There was a time when bonds of honor meant no druid would raise a hand against a sister or a brother. And if one came peacefully, the ceasefire was respected.

     Foolishness.

     But the image of those remains will not leave me.

**Author's Note:**

> The social mores of communities blow my mind, folks. Discovering that there were so few druids in game at one point that they wouldn't attack one another in battlegrounds by unspoken agreement is damn cool.
> 
> I'll try to post more of these holiday journal entries this year since they've been in my head for a while and I'd like to get them out.


End file.
